Custom Printed Home Decor: Process & Artwork Checklist

Custom printing goes wrong in the same five places, every time — and none of them are in the factory.

They're in the brief, the artwork file, the approval turnaround, the sample sign-off, and the packing spec. This checklist walks the whole path end to end so you can see where your project currently sits, and what's likely to delay it.

First, know which kind of "custom" you're buying

Two very different things get called custom printing, and confusing them is where lead times and MOQs go sideways:

Most first-time custom projects only need print customisation. Ask which one you're being quoted for before you accept an MOQ figure — a high MOQ on a print-only job usually means you're being priced for tooling you don't need.

The 7 steps

Notice that steps 1, 2 and 4 still depend on you — you have to hand over the brief, hand over the artwork, and approve the mockup. In our experience, the buyer-side handover and approval steps account for the majority of missed ship dates, not production. The factory clock only runs reliably once the brief is final and a decision-maker has signed off.

Step 2: artwork — send whatever you have

This is where most custom projects stall, and usually for a bad reason: the buyer gets stuck trying to produce a "print-ready" file before they feel able to place an order.

You don't need one. Send us whatever you have and our in-house design team prepares the production file — colour handling, bleed, safe areas, scaling to the product size, the lot.

That covers, in practice:

• a logo as a JPG, a PNG, or even a screenshot
• a design downloaded from Canva, Etsy or a stock library
• a piece of hand-painted artwork photographed on a phone
• a print from an old catalogue you want recreated
• a reference image plus "we want something in this direction"

We come back with a mockup on the actual product, so you approve an outcome rather than a file specification. That's the practical difference between a factory with in-house designers and one that bounces your file back with a checklist.

If you or your designer would rather prepare the file yourself

These are the targets our own design team works to. Hit them and you remove the revision round trip entirely:

If you fix only one thing: send vector, or ≥300 DPI at final print size. Nearly every "we need to redo this" starts there. And if you can't — send it anyway. We'll rebuild it.

Step 3: the mockup (and why you should always ask for one)

A mockup is a digital preview of your artwork placed on the actual product — not a physical sample.

Ask for a mockup before you commit to anything. Two reasons:

1. It catches scale problems. Artwork that looks balanced on a flat 1000 × 1000 px preview can sit awkwardly on a round 33 cm charger, or lose its centre on a rectangular tray.
2. It's cheap and fast. A mockup takes days; a wrong production run takes a month and your budget.

A mockup is also where colour expectations get set honestly. Screens are backlit; printed substrate is not. Expect a darker print than your screen preview.

Step 4: the approval loop (the step that quietly costs you a week)

This is where we see the most slippage, and it's the cheapest step to fix:

• Name one decision-maker. Projects with a committee go back and forth four times. Projects with one approver go back and forth once.
• Give feedback in one consolidated round — numbered against the mockup — rather than a drip of emails.
• Set an internal deadline. Every day a proof sits unapproved is a day added to the ship date. The factory cannot start; the slot may be given to another order.

Step 5: sampling

If your project needs a physical pre-production sample, budget for it explicitly in the timeline — the sample has to be produced, shipped, and approved before mass production can start.

We produce samples in 3 business days, plus courier time to your door. Because the turnaround is short, sampling is usually worth doing even on a repeat design: the sample is a real production run of one, not a hand-finished mock-up, so it tells you what the mass order will actually look like.

Sampling matters most when the substrate is new to you, when the colour is commercially important, or when the order is large enough that a re-run would hurt. It's usually skippable when you're re-ordering a design that has already shipped and been approved.

Step 6: production and QC

Production runs to your published processing window — 10–20 business days for large or customised orders.

Before goods ship, ask for video QC: a short, real-time or timestamped recording of the inspection — the actual goods being checked, counted, and packed.

Why video rather than a photo set:

• Photos are curated; video is harder to stage. A still can be the one good unit.
• You see quantity, not just quality. A 30-second pan across a packed carton answers "are there really 500 in there?"
• Timestamp and identity. Real-time video with the order number in frame ties the inspection to your order, on a date — a documentary record you can act on.
• It's reviewable by your whole team without a factory visit.

Ask for it by default on any order above your minimum. It's the single highest-leverage QC step available to a buyer who isn't on-site.

Step 7: packing & shipping

Decide and communicate early:

• Individual packaging — polybag, header card, gift box, barcode-ready? Retail-ready packing costs more and adds days.
• Carton spec — units per carton, carton weight and dimensions, palletisation. This determines your freight cost more than the product does, because decor goods are bulky.
• Carton markings — SKU, quantities per carton, and any marketplace requirements (Amazon FBA, for example, has its own labelling rules).
• Barcode readiness — print-ready barcodes on retail packaging, or a separate label line at your end.

Get carton dimensions before you book freight. Volumetric weight pricing on bulky decor is the most common surprise on a first import.

The 10-point pre-order checklist

Copy this into your supplier brief:

[ ] 1. Print customisation or shape customisation? (this sets your MOQ)
[ ] 2. Artwork handed over — any format is fine; we prepare the
       production file at no extra cost
[ ] 3. If you're preparing it yourself: CMYK, Pantone/PMS refs noted
[ ] 4. 3 mm bleed where the design runs to the edge
[ ] 5. Critical elements kept >=5 mm inside the trim
[ ] 6. Fonts outlined or embedded
[ ] 7. Digital mockup requested and approved by ONE named decision-maker
[ ] 8. Physical sample: needed or not? (we produce samples in 3 business
       days)
[ ] 9. Video QC agreed as a shipping condition
[ ] 10. Carton dimensions + retail packaging + barcodes confirmed BEFORE
       booking freight

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MintiHome is a manufacturer, not a trading company. We print to your own artwork on charger plates, decorative trays, wall décor and vases, from 50 pcs per design for print customisation. See our custom charger plate programme, our lead time and MOQ benchmarks, or our guide to evaluating product samples. If you are still choosing a product and a size, start with our charger plate size guide.